Day 67: Nimes to Tarascon

November 12, 2022

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Our room at the Kyriad was fine, in the sense that since our camping days we define anything bigger (and dryer) than a tent as fine. But really, it was approximately equivalent to Ibis Budget. After some really terrific Kyriad experiences, we had decided it must be a quality chain. But in fact it's random, and the property labelled Kyriad could be almost anything.

Outside Kyriad Nimes Centre. They did have a garage for the bikes and a half decent breakfast.

We set aside about an hour and a half to both get a sense of what Nimes is all about, and to track down its half dozen major attractions. Jumping to the "what it's all about" part, we know Nimes has a lot of industry (and used to be big in textiles - denim, for example, is deNimes), and we did see all those tall white buildings from the distance yesterday, but the Nimes we experienced had some different features. First, there was a dramatic mixture of wide open expansive squares, and ultra narrow laneways. Next, in the squares you were likely to find beautifully preserved or restored Roman buildings. And on this Saturday morning, there was no traffic downtown - really, almost none. Finally, the stores in the streets were a mixture of sort of normal quality, shoes or clothing, and very humble stuff, like hairdressers, laundromats, or basic pizza takeout. There was no Chanel or Prada or etc. to be seen at all. Not even close.

We liked Nimes, for its calm streets, open aspect in general, and interesting but not overwhelming sights.

Each of the major sights of the town had at least one explanation panel. The layout of the panels was standardized, with the monuments arrayed across the top in a time line. The oldest thing is the Magne tower, part of the original Augustan walls, followed by first century Roman temple, the Arena of the same age, and then the Cathedral. The Cathedral is from 1096. Not really all that much in terms of major monuments happened, from our point of view, after that!

Emperor Augustus (31 BC) came up with the city' coat of arms - a crocodile chained to a palm tree. We found the palm tree, anyway. It makes us feel like we are down south, which we are!

Dodie noticed in at least one square that the flooring was marble. Swanky!

One of the first things we spotted, not exactly a major monument, was a cafe. The Cafe de la Bourse is across the street from what we take to be the Stock Exchange, but the photo shows the Arena, which is pretty cool.

The neo-medieval Church of St Paul is from the mid 1800's

One of the city's greatest treasures is the "Maison Caree", a Roman temple from approximately the year 2. Imagine, something of that age standing here.

A 1935 artists impression of the temple in operation

We wanted to track down at least the major monuments that the city lists, and one of these was the Cathedral. The GPS brought us to it, alright, but it was hard to recognize. It is both partially covered in scaffolding, and otherwise surrounded by buildings which have been snugged up tight to it. This is something that also happened to the Arena, but those encroaching buildings were later demolished.

With the cathedral so hidden, my attention was drawn by this civic worker manning a mobile vacuum cleaner. Good idea!

About the clearest view of the Cathedral, from 1881!

We stumbled on an interesting and well presented bit of the Roman past, in the form of the La Porte Auguste, which was one of the original gates of the city. The illustration shows the bit that is still standing in the context of the former whole.

A statue behind the gate gives life to the site.

Finally, the Arena, built at the end of the first century AD, not long after the Coliseum in Rome.

A lot restoration work has been ongoing with the Arena. You can see it below, with those inner arches. We suppose it's an issue about how much to restore. Too little and the thing crumbles to ruins, too much and you lose the thing you were trying to preserve.

This large billboard describes preservation efforts.

In this detail from the billboard, we see how ancient skills are needed now.

This statue of a matador nicely sets off the Arena behind.

Time to leave town! But we'll pass this 1851 statue, with the unique aspect that the main figure is wearing a hat made of the Roman Temple.

As we began to leave town, I snapped this shot which shows the humble shops typical of Nimes streets.

One shop was a baker, with some local specialties. Fougasse is a typical local bread style. It is usually sculpted or slashed, but this first ything pictured is just bun shaped. It's claim to fame is flavouring with orange water. The baker brought out a bottle of the stuff for us to smell.

The baker said he was making a special one typically seen in Provence at Christmas.

I had made a track for getting us out of town. Neither of us particularly trusted it, but it worked. Despite Nimes not having bike lanes to speak of, we got out without too much traffic hassle.

Our route took us by ugly apartment buildings.

Our plan was to get to Margueritte, a town about 10 km out of Nimes. From there we would proceed east until hitting the Voie Verte that runs north south from Uzes to Tarascon. Going north on this would take us to the famous Pont du Gard. A couple pf quick photos and we would turn around and zoom down to our B&B in Tarascon.

Well, we got to Margeurittes, and found a market going on! According to our policy, we dove right in.

This nice man was peeling Clementines for samples. We had his young daughter pick out six nice ones for us to buy. These Clementines are easily peeled and really flavourful. Even at Christmas, we do not find oranges of this quality at home.

We think the grandkids would find these cute.

Of course the usual array of to us strange sea creatures.

This sauerkraut concoction looked really yummy.

And oh, the chicken! This time our food bag was already full. Darn.

Dried veggies and candied fruits, so good.

Passing through the market, we entered Marguerittes, which was a little bigger than we had supposed. I have been calling Dodie my Ventoux compass, because she always points to Mont Ventoux. Sure enough, here she is pointing even to Ventoux Street!

Marguerittes was definitely looking Provencal, from the style of houses and plants. We found another Persimmon tree, and an orange tree. Some readers will laugh that we find an orange tree special, but try to find just one in BC!

Here were also huge plantations of olives.

Plane trees highlighting our beautiful road.

And oh, there are still some Camargue horses about!

These sheep were trying a bust out, but the humans seemed to have things under control, so we carried on.

This was tempting, but we would have had to call the people to make a purchase.

We had tapped into the rail trail, and would have basically clear sailing for the rest of the ride.

Hills, are likely to become more significant in our days!

Should be lots of squash soup coming soon.

We had headed up the Voie Verte to reach the Pont du Gard. This is an aqueduct built in the first century, that has been on the UNESCO world heritage list since 1985. It is 275 meters long and 48 high, with three sets of superimposed arches.

My expectation about this was that there would be a viewpoint and maybe some billboards, or even an interpretation centre. So it would be a few quick photos and out of there. How wrong I was. Even in normal times, this is one of the most visited sites in southern France. But this day, they were running a huge marathon, with various distances, including Nimes to Uzes, and terminating here. There were thousands of people, a lot of them runners, most wearing the official tee shirt. Sometimes we just stumble into things like this!

And this kind of huge pavilion. At this stage we had no idea where darn Pont even was.

Scads of runners. We asked them what this was all about.

Well now we can at least see the Pont, but we will have to push through all these people.

Looking down river. Over on the right there is equivalent commercial development what we just passed through from our side.

We carried on across the bridge, and down into the action on the other side.

This guy stretching after the race, was also losing any benefits, with a beer and a cigarette, at the same time.

We left the crowds and set off back down the Voie Verte. Look at the beautiful trees along the way.

I stopped at one tree, thinking it could be a kumquat, from the orange fruits. But no, they were hard and had no scent. That would make this just one of zillions of flowering shrubs. But what is it?

We had what might me our last encounter with Camargue horses, as we came upon a small group, with two young ones. As it always the case, they came over to the fence to see us, and allowed us to pat their noses. They are so calm, not at all skittish, and can be almost dog like in wanting to be patted.

Camargue horses do not turn white until later

The horses' keepers happened to drive up - and then it was feeding time!

We were now on the same portion of the Voie Verte that we had ridden before, and had another go with the psychedelic lighted tunnel.

Beaucaire is another town that has a bull statue at the entrance.

Here are the church and the castle at the entrance to Tarascon.

Our B&B is called Mas Armeln. It can trace its origins to 1734. Tomorrow we are promised breakfast in a farmhouse portion of the buildings that is also extremely old. The couple that runs the place are of German origin, but the main boss is Hugo, the Daschund.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 3,109 km (1,931 miles)

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Keith KleinHi,
As you’ve probably figured out, we love Nîmes. Calm, much to see and do, and great Provençal food. Only problem is the summer temperature which can hit 42! Too hot for northern blood.
Cheers,
Keith
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith KleinWe love Nimes also. Our visit at this time of year was really perfect, although a bit earlier might have more reliably good temperatures.
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2 years ago